Business Ethics

I have just started the section of my CFA notes on Business Ethics. With the Actuarial Qualification, there was no actual `Ethics' component to the exam. You basically attended a 2 day professionalism course within 6 months of completing your exams.

The CFA Institute does it differently. The exams actually pose scenarios and you have to determine the right course of action.

Which method is better? Is Ethics something you can teach academically and expect to be applied or is it better dropping the pretence (if that is what it is) and just having an attendance course. Well, you could argue that that adds the pretence rather than dropping it.

The CFA Institute uses the marks in the Ethics sections to determine whether or not to push through borderline candidates. This presumes that people who score more highly in the Ethics sections are likely to be more ethical... I am not convinced.

I am also not convinced that there is such a thing as Business Ethics... there are just ethics.

Although, I suppose... if we are going to try and interact with others... perhaps a code is necessary. It is also a way of avoiding government regulation.